


Guys' Night

by wheel_pen



Series: Viridian Mal [7]
Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fish out of Water, Gen, Imprinting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-14
Updated: 2013-04-14
Packaged: 2017-12-08 11:30:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/760842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jon and Trip try to have a guys’ night watching water polo, but Trip has new responsibilities now that sometimes get in the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Guys' Night

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Viridians appear human, but are actually aliens who imprint on other people (Viridian or otherwise) and form a bond with them. They also live their entire life cycle in about six Earth years.
> 
> 2\. In each series, a different character is a Viridian, who was raised by mean Klingons on an outpost. An Enterprise crewmember is captured by the Klingons and they inadvertently form a bond with the Viridian, who helps them escape. Then they return to rescue the Viridian and bring them aboard the Enterprise. The Viridian homeworld is contacted and the Enterprise crew learn the Viridian will most likely die if they are sent away. So they end up staying on the Enterprise, and the crewmember has to adjust.
> 
> 3\. The bad words are censored. That’s just how I do things.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this AU. I own nothing and appreciate the chance to play in this universe.

"Hold that lift!" Trip automatically pressed the 'hold' button, not looking up from his data pad. A figure bounded into the small compartment with him. "Thanks."

"No prob," Trip muttered. He saw a quick movement out of the corner of his eye and then the lift paused, between decks. With a trace of irritation beginning on his face Trip finally looked up from his work—into the green eyes of Jonathan Archer. "Oh, hey Captain," he greeted with a belated smile.

"Shouldn't I knock you down a few ranks for not saluting me right away?" Jon teased.

"Suits me," Trip sighed, lacking his usual buoyancy. "I could use a little less responsibility."

Jon frowned. "What've you got there?"

Trip handed it over. "D—n personnel reviews," he grumbled. "It's not like I don't wanna record how great my people are, you know," he added quickly, "but—"

"But how can you be a good boss to them when you're stuck in your office all day doing paperwork?" Jon finished with a smile.

"Exactly," Trip agreed. "I mean, seems like I just _wrote_ these things, what—"

"Three months ago?" Jon supplied. "That's why they're called _quarterly_ reviews, Trip."

"I guess…"

"Think of them like all those tasks in Engineering that have to be done, but no one likes," Jon advised. "You want to set a good example, don't you?"

A thought occurred to Trip. "Say, don't _you_ have to write some personnel reviews, too, on all the senior staff and department heads? How are _yours_ coming?"

Jon squirmed a little. "Um… I usually wait for T'Pol's _third_ warning," he admitted. "She gets kind of nasty after that."

Trip snickered. "So… any particular reason you and I are holding up the lift for everyone else? People might start to talk."

"Imagine how they'd talk if they knew I was inviting you to come over tonight," Jon replied dryly. "For an illicit round of… water polo viewing."

"Oh, if only that were a euphemism," smirked Trip, before his expression turned regretful. "I don't know, Jon, I'd sure like to, seems like it's been forever, but…"

"Come on, Georgia State vs. Stanford," Jon coaxed.

"So, a clear case of good versus evil," Trip remarked.

Jon chose to take the high road. "We won't have any ambiguity about who to root for," he rephrased. Trip still looked hesitant. "We'll have a couple beers, some pretzels, just kick back and relax a little."

"I'm kinda supposed to be doin' these reviews, you know," Trip reminded his friend.

"Take the night off," Jon suggested more firmly. "You work too hard, Trip."

"If you're about to pull out the old, 'Just thought you'd want to spend a little time with your Captain' line…" Trip warned, and Jon laughed.

"I'll use it if I have to!"

The beep of the comm cut off Trip's reply. " _T'Pol to Captain Archer_."

Archer rolled his eyes and pressed the button. "Archer here."

" _Captain, are you experiencing any difficulty?_ "

"No, I—" Trip waved his hands, then pointed at the blinking 'hold' button. "—except the 'hold' button in this lift seems to be stuck," he added.

He could picture T'Pol raising an eyebrow on the Bridge. " _How unfortunate. Shall I dispatch a repair team?_ "

"No," Archer decided, looking at Trip speculatively. "Commander Tucker is working on it."

Trip glared at his friend for dragging him into this. "Um, yeah, almost got it," he agreed. He pressed the 'hold' button again, setting the lift in motion. "D—n! Chewing gum!" It was the first excuse he thought of, and Jon put a hand over his mouth to muffle his laughter. "Um, all cleared up now."

" _I am relieved to hear that your engineering skills have once again saved the day_ ," the First Officer replied icily. " _T'Pol out_."

Trip gave a low whistle. "What warning is she on now?"

"Um, second, I think," Jon told him sheepishly.

"I think she's starting to get nasty early," Trip opined.

The lift stopped, opening to a crowd of crewmembers who didn't _quite_ glare at their superior officers. Jon and Trip exited quickly. "—and I'm gonna take this d—n chewing gum to Phlox for a DNA test, and whoever stuck it on the 'hold' button's gonna be scrubbing plasma conduits for a month!" Trip threatened loudly.

Jon managed to keep a straight face until they were around the corner. "Don't bury yourself in the part," he warned Trip.

"Just tryin' to stick to the story," Trip countered.

"So you'll come over tonight?" Jon prompted. "Come on, after all the trouble we just went through?"

"Which was completely your fault, by the way," Trip reminded him. He looked at Jon's expression and sighed. "Yes, okay, I'll come over," he agreed.

It was worth it for Jon's very uncaptainly grin. "Great! 1830, 1900?"

"Sounds good," Trip told him. Then he stopped dead in the middle of the hallway. "Aw, d—n!"

"What?"

"I forgot about Mal." Trip let out a noise of exasperation.

Ah yes, the other reason Jon hadn't seen much of his friend lately. "Yeah, Mal… Where is he, anyway?" The question was asked more out of politeness than anything else.

"Oh, I yelled at him for stealin' all my hot water again this morning and he took off for one of his little hidey-holes to pout," Trip said, rolling his eyes.

"Oh." Jon wasn't sure what else to say to that. "Do you, uh, think he'd like water polo?" He tried to project the aura that Mal was completely welcome if he wanted to come. But to be honest, he'd been hoping to see his friend alone, like he used to.

"No," Trip snorted. "He'd ask all kinds of dumb questions, then get bored and try to show me tricks he could do or something." Trip waved it off dismissively. "I'll leave him at home."

"You're sure?"

"Yeah, he can… clean or something," Trip insisted, his tone indicating what he thought of such an activity.

"Well, all right," Jon told him, starting to turn off. "See you tonight!"

"Lookin' forward to it."

 

Trip took a sip of the coffee he was handed. "D—n, that's good. Thanks."

"You're welcome."

Trip nearly jumped out of his skin, sloshing some coffee onto the floor of his office. Mal knelt beside him and, without surprise, pulled out a cloth to sop up the mess. "J---s!" Trip continued, willing his heartbeat to slow down. "Where'd _you_ come from?!"

"The Mess Hall," Mal replied, a touch patronizing. "Who did you _think_ handed you the coffee?"

Trip ignored the jibe. "Well, nice of you to show your face, finally," he shot back in a similar tone. "And don't give me that look," Trip warned at Mal's silent response. "I meant what I said about the shower this morning." Mal crossed his arms over his chest and looked away. Trip sighed and bent down in his chair, elbows on knees, to Mal's eye level. "Look, Mal, we've got limited resources on this ship. Everything's gotta be conserved, and whatever's used has to be recycled, so—"

"What's recycled?" Mal asked.

"Um, reused," Trip explained quickly. "All the water used on the ship gets collected, purified, and reused. But the process isn't one hundred percent efficient, so we lose a little water with every use, and lemme tell ya, that adds up—"

"The _dirty_ water is reused?" Mal interrupted, sounding horrified.

Trip's back was starting to get tired, so he sat up and leaned back in his chair again. Mal scooted closer to him on the floor. "Now like I _said_ , the water gets purified first. It gets cleaned first—"

"But—ugh—the water that goes down the drain in the shower?" Mal persisted. "And the sink? The _toilet_?"

Trip grinned. "You got it. It all gets recycled. Except for the percentage that's lost. And besides _that_ , it takes energy to _heat_ the water, so using hot water is even _more_ inefficient. You wanna shower in _cold_ water, you can stay in longer," he added with a smirk.

Mal was now close enough that Trip had to spread his feet a bit, lest they be knelt on. "It's possible I may never shower again," Mal replied with disgust. "Perhaps I could learn to _lick_ myself clean—"

Now it was Trip's turn to be thoroughly grossed out. "That's just nasty," he judged.

"But there was a furry wild creature near the outpost that could—" Mal began to protest.

Trip held up his hand. "Just—no," he declared. "Keep showering. Just—not so long, okay?" He gave Mal a look that he hoped conveyed his sincerity.

Mal sighed. "I shall try," he conceded. He leaned one elbow casually on Trip's knee. "How are your reviews coming?"

Trip leaned farther back in his chair, stretching slightly, and Mal leaned forward even more. "They're comin' along okay, I guess, I just—"

"Commander? Oh, sorry!"

Before Trip could even turn completely the door to his office had shut again. He gave Mal a mystified look. "What the h—l was _that_ about?" he wondered. "Go see if—" Mal was already standing and moving to the door. He opened it, stuck his head out to look around, then shut it and came back to his previous position on the floor and partly on Trip.

"I didn't see anyone waiting," he reported. "Your staff seem a bit jumpy sometimes."

"Yeah, I don't really get it," Trip agreed. "Everyone gets tense at review time. Maybe that's it. Scoot over there or something so I can go back to work."

"Can I sit under the desk while you work?" Mal requested, looking longingly at the tempting dark cubbyhole.

"That would be a _no_ ," Trip told him dryly. "Go sit by the couch or something." For a few minutes they were quiet and progress was made on the reports. Then suddenly Trip remembered what he'd wanted to tell Mal and quickly tried to figure out how best to phrase it.

"What?" Mal asked suspiciously, before Trip was ready, and the engineer once again cursed Mal's emotion-reading skill.

"Nothing," Trip insisted, as Mal crawled back over to him. "Just wanted to let you know I'm goin' over to the Captain's cabin after dinner tonight. Probably be gone three or four hours." He tried to sound casual.

"And you don't want _me_ to come," Mal surmised.

"Well, I don't think you'd be interested," Trip replied, reaching for his coffee.

"Are you meeting the Captain for a sexual liaison?"

Trip choked on his coffee, sputtering some onto the floor again. Mal jumped up and patted him solicitously on the back, distressed at the rather unpleasant sounds Trip was emitting as the coffee went down the wrong way.

The door popped open again. "Comm—Sorry!" This time Trip thought he'd gotten a glimpse of Ensign Ramirez around Mal before she retreated hurriedly.

"Are you okay?" Mal asked worriedly, finally dropping back down to the deck to swab up coffee again.

"What the h—l," Trip demanded, when he could finally speak. He was perfectly okay with Ramirez _not_ coming back in for the next few minutes.

"I don't really know what 'sexual liaison' means," Mal admitted speculatively. "I think it has something to do with chewing gum, though. Although I don't know what _that_ is, either."

Trip set the coffee cup out of harm's way and faced Mal with a stern look. "Okay, one—NO. Two, _maybe_ we shouldn't _use_ words if we don't know what they mean. And C—"

"Three," Mal corrected helpfully.

Trip's stern look turned into a glare. " _Three_ —where the h—l did you hear that?!"

Mal shrugged without concern. "I overheard someone talking to someone else, and they mentioned your name so I started listening very carefully."

"Who?!"

"I don't know." Mal's tone became defensive. "There are about a hundred and fifty million people on this ship, you can't expect me to know them _all_."

"There's eighty-three!" Trip countered loudly. "Eighty-four including you!"

"That's a _lot_!"

Trip sighed and tried to come back to the point. " _No_ , I am not going to the Captain's cabin for—whatever."

"Sex—" Mal began to supply.

"Whatever the thing is, that you don't really _know_ what it is!" Trip interrupted. "I am going to watch a game of water polo, which is a sport. That's all."

If Trip thought he was going to be able to end the conversation _that_ easily… "What's water polo?"

"It's a _sport_ ," Trip repeated, with growing irritation. He had _work_ to do, after all, and less time than usual to do it in, thanks to the Captain's suggestion. "Buncha guys in a swimming pool, thrashin' around after a ball."

"What's a—"

"A swimming pool is a giant tank full of water!"

Mal was quiet for so long after that, Trip thought he'd finally dropped it. Until he heard a whisper. "What a horrible thing to have as a sport."

He sounded so disturbed by it that Trip turned back around to look at him. Mal was sitting on the floor with his knees drawn up to his chin and his arms wrapped tight around them, his face even paler than usual. Trip immediately left his chair and dropped down on one knee beside him.

"Hey, Mal, what's wrong? Are you okay?"

"That's horrible," Mal repeated, his chin trembling. "How can you watch such a thing? For entertainment?"

Now Trip was thoroughly confused. "Mal, what are you talking about? It's just a game."

"Just a game?" Mal sniffed, his voice dark. "Just a game, watching people _drown_?"

"Drown? No, no, no—" The door to his office slid open again. "Not a good time!" Trip snapped at Ramirez, who vanished for the third time. What the h—l was wrong with that woman today?

"Almost drown, then," Mal amended.

"No, it's nothing like that," Trip insisted. He sat down on the floor facing Mal, close enough to put a hand on his knee and rub it a bit in an attempt to calm him. "No one drowns, no one _almost_ drowns. They all know how to swim. It's fine, no one gets hurt."

Mal looked up with some hope. "They don't?"

"No, of course not! Well," Trip added, "like in any sport sometimes there are injuries, on accident, but that's not the _goal_. There are rules people have to follow, and like I said these guys are all great swimmers."

"What's swim?" Mal asked curiously.

"Swimming is, uh—it's how you move in the water so you don't drown," Trip explained. Mal frowned without comprehension. "You know…" Trip demonstrated a few arm movements that undoubtedly would have seemed bizarre if his ensign had decided to look in again.

Mal shook his head. "I don't understand," he admitted. "I mean, I suppose that's a lovely idea, to have a method for moving in water so you don't drown—but why don't people just stay _away_ from water?"

"Oh, but swimmin's _fun_ , Mal!" Trip assured him. "I grew up on the ocean. The Captain used to live by the ocean. Different oceans, I mean. Lots of people enjoy swimming and diving and playing sports in the water and going way underwater to look at fish and—" He stopped when he saw the panicked expression on Mal's face. "Hey, what's wrong? You afraid of the water or something?" He tried to lighten the mood. "Wouldn't think so from the way you shower."

Mal gave him a mild smile. "Well, there weren't any giant tanks of water or oceans where _I_ grew up," he pointed out.

"Yeah, I guess not," Trip agreed. "Well, anyway…" He pushed himself back to his feet. "I got work to finish up. Why don't you—"

Mal was already scrambling up as well. "Get you some more coffee? Alright. You've spilt half of it on the floor anyway."

Trip shook his head. "You better get yourself a snack, too," he told Mal. "I don't wanna hear any whinin' later." Mal gave him what appeared to be a genuine grin before heading out the door.

He nearly ran into Ramirez, who was loitering outside. "Oh. Mal," she said awkwardly, not making eye contact with him. "Is, uh, Commander Tucker—free?"

"I think so," Mal replied. "I should warn you, though, he's very hard"—Ramirez gave a strange squeak—"at work, actually," Mal continued, finding her behavior odd. "Made a bit of a mess on the floor"—Ramirez seemed to choke a bit—"so I'm just going to get him some more coffee. Are you quite alright?"

Trip stuck his head out the door. "Oh, Ramirez, there you are. Come on in. Sorry about earlier," he continued, ushering her into his office. "Mal and I were just talkin' about, well, water polo actually, and he got a bit upset."

"Upset," the ensign repeated with a respectful amount of confusion.

"Yeah, I'm going over to the Captain's for some water polo tonight and—" He shook his head. "Never mind. What did you want to see me about?"

She handed him a data pad quickly. "Just the diagnostics from the plasma injector test, sir," she reported. "You said you wanted to see them when they were done."

"Oh, yeah, great, thanks," Trip told her, mentally adding that to his list of things to look into when the reviews were finally completed. "Anything else?"

"No, sir. Thank you, sir."

"What'd he say?" Ensign Abijou whispered conspiratorially when Ramirez returned to her post.

They both hushed up as another crewmember walked by, then Ramirez hissed, " _Water polo_." Abijou stared at her, then they both started giggling as quietly as possible.

"Must be the new euphemism," he decided.

 

Jon answered the door to his cabin at 1845 with a smile of greeting that turned slightly sheepish after he let Trip in. "Glad you're here. I was just going to run down to the Mess Hall—"

"You forgot the pretzels again, didn't you?" Trip accused, with exasperation bordering on ire. "D----t, Jon, I don't have all the time in the world here—"

Porthos barked and leaped at Trip in welcome and the engineer had to move his hands from behind his back—revealing the extra-large bowl of pretzels he'd brought with him. Jon gave him a look.

"Well, I knew you'd forget," Trip explained airily, handing over the snacks. Then, as a distraction, he dropped to one knee and starting rubbing Porthos's ears excitedly. "Hiya, Porthos! There's a good boy, oh yes!"

Jon shook his head and set the pretzels on the table, reaching for the pitcher of golden-brown liquid on the counter. "Beer?"

"Well _yeah_ ," Trip replied, as if it should be obvious.

Once properly refreshed, the two men sat down on the couch and Jon switched on the screen to start up the water polo game. Porthos jumped up to join them, padding back and forth across their laps for several moments before settling down with his head on Jon's leg and his tail on Trip's. "How come _I_ always get the back end?" the engineer complained good-naturedly.

"Just lucky, I guess," Jon assured him. "Mal at home?"

"Yeah, I left him reading something," Trip replied, not taking his eyes from the screen.

"Did he give you a hard time about it?" Jon popped a pretzel into his mouth, and Porthos whined for one as well.

Trip shook his head. "No, he was okay with it. I guess. For the most part." He sounded less certain the longer he went on. "I mean, yeah, he'd rather be with me, wherever I am, but he wasn't so keen on the sport—I don't think he likes the water very much."

"Except for showering," Jon amended, remembering Trip's earlier rant.

"Well, right. But he completely freaked out when I was describing water polo to him," Trip went on. Jon found his concentration divided between his friend and the game. "Thought we were watching people drown for fun." At that Jon gave him a look. "I don't know, maybe that's what Klingons do for entertainment."

He was quiet just long enough for Jon to get into the game. "I just don't understand how his mind works," Trip said suddenly.

Jon cheered a score by Stanford. "Who?" he asked distractedly.

"Mal," Trip clarified. "I mean, he reads a lot, and pretty fast—I bet he's read a hundred books just since he's been on _Enterprise_." Jon nodded, facing the screen. "But somehow he's never picked up on what 'swimming' is? Just seems weird to me."

"Maybe he doesn't retain much of what he reads," Jon offered. They both hissed at a painful-looking collision on-screen.

"Yeah, I suppose," Trip agreed, and Jon couldn't quite remember what he was agreeing with.

"He sure remembers every d—n thing _I_ say or do, though," Trip remarked a few minutes later.

"Huh?" Jon asked, glancing away from the game only briefly.

"Only I think he deliberately does what I _don't_ want him to, sometimes," Trip continued. "Like the shower thing—it's not that he _forgot_ he wasn't supposed to stay in so long. He just _wanted_ to. I mean, what kinda attitude is that?"

"Um, you know," Jon began, tearing himself away from the game for a moment, "I don't think it would be a big deal to have your hot water ration doubled. I mean, you've got two people living in your cabin."

"That's not the _point_ ," Trip insisted. "The point is, who says, 'I know I'm not supposed to do this, but I'm going to anyway'?"

"Uh, lots of people," Jon pointed out. "Including you." He turned the volume on the game up a bit, hoping Trip would get the hint.

For a little while, Jon thought he had. But it seemed as though Trip was just working himself up again. "I mean, it's not like I want him to have no personality or anything," the engineer asserted. "But it's so exhausting—he's always got to have attention."

"I know what you mean," Jon commented under his breath.

Trip went on without noticing. "Pet me, feed me, watch me do a trick, explain this to me, reassure me, tuck me in at night—"

At this Jon turned to look at his friend. "You tuck him in at night?"

Trip shrugged. "Well, you know…"

"Look, Trip, he's had a hard life, you know," Jon reminded him. "I mean, you _should_ know, you're the one who witnessed it." Trip nodded. "All he knew was people yelling at him, beating him, forcing him to steal food if he wanted to eat—" At least that was what Jon remembered from Trip's impassioned report on the mission. "A little positive attention now doesn't seem like such a big deal."

"I guess," Trip responded, without conviction.

This time he was quiet for a good fifteen minutes—not necessarily what Jon was hoping for, as Trip didn't appear to be cheering Georgia on or even watching the game. It took several seconds, in fact, for Trip to realize that Jon had paused the game and turned to face his friend on the couch.

"Oh, hey," Trip remarked, a bit guiltily. "Something wrong?"

"I was about to ask you the same thing," Jon replied, with a hint of a smile. "Let me guess… you're thinking about Mal?"

Trip grinned self-consciously. "I'm sorry," he admitted. "I've got kind of a one-track mind, don't I?"

Jon smiled fully at him. "Well, I'd say now it has _two_ tracks—the engines, and Mal."

"It's just—G-d, it's a huge change, you know?" Trip tried to explain. "Worse even than getting a pet—no offense, Porthos," he added quickly, scratching the dog's back. "Maybe worse than having a kid, I don't know… When I signed up for this mission, I figured I'd be dealing with maintenance and repairs and upgrades to the engines and the rest of the ship, doing some administrative stuff"—he shook his head, thinking of the undone personnel reviews waiting for him at home—"maybe even gettin' to play Captain every once in a while." Jon smiled at that. "Meetin' new creatures and havin' adventures on new planets. Just didn't think I'd be bringin' one of those new creatures home with me."

"It's impossible to predict things out here, Trip," Jon commented. "I would rather bring home someone new, than leave someone behind."

Trip agreed with that sentiment. "He's just— _there_ , every second of every day," he went on. "I have to think about when he last ate, where he went, what he's poking at, and there's just _no escape_. Sometimes I think I'm gonna go crazy if I have to deal with that stare or those questions for _one more second_."

"No one ever said this would be easy," Jon reminded him gently. "But you've already saved his life. Twice, really. Every second he spends here is better than most of the two years he spent on that outpost."

Trip gave his friend an open look. "Would you think I was a bad person if I said sometimes I wish I had never gone down to that rock?"

"Not at all," Jon told him firmly. "I've certainly wished the same thing—especially when we first transported you back and I saw what kind of shape you were in," he added soberly. "There have been a lot of times I've wished you hadn't gone somewhere. Even when I was the one who sent you. But if we wanted to be where things were safe and familiar and predictable—we would have stayed on Earth." Trip nodded slowly. "And hey," Jon went on with a bit of a smile, "according to what the Viridians said, maybe Mal can protect you the next time you go somewhere not so predictable."

Trip snorted. "Fat chance of that," he said. "He can barely even feed himself."

"Didn't he keep you from falling in the shower the other day?" Jon asked, with a twinkle in his eye. "Or, at least, that's what you _said_ he was doing…"

Trip gave him a manly punch to the shoulder. "And thanks _so_ much for not completely wiping that from your memory!" he replied sarcastically as Jon chuckled. "Anyway, I was only slippin' because _he_ startled me in the first place!"

"You'll get used to each other, Trip," Jon assured him after a moment. "It will just take some time. But we'll _all_ get used to him, and he'll get used to the idea that we're not going to suddenly turn on him and hurt him. Maybe then he'll calm down a little."

Trip thought that over for a bit. Slowly a sheepish smirk appeared on his face. "You know what the worst part is?"

Jon grinned. "You miss him, don't you?"

Trip was genuinely surprised. "D—n, you're good." He gave his friend an uncertain look. "Do you mind if I call him over?"

"Not at all," Jon told him warmly, and this time he meant it.

The door chimed just as Trip reached for the comm. "Come in," Jon allowed, curious as to who the visitor could be.

They really shouldn't have been surprised. But they were. "What are _you_ doing here?" Trip demanded.

"You wanted me to come," Mal replied thoughtfully, cocking his head to the side. "Didn't you?"

Jon stood. "Well, come on in, Mal," he told the other man. "Um, I'll be right back." With that he made a graceful exit to the bathroom.

Trip sat on the couch staring up at Mal. He couldn't even articulate the emotions swirling through him, although Mal at least appeared to be attempting it. "Well, come on in, like the man said," Trip finally insisted. "Sit down."

Mal plopped himself down at Trip's feet and Porthos immediately jumped on him. Mal started to whine, squirming away from the dog with increasingly complex contortions until he was rolling around on the deck plating.

"Trip! Get him off me! Trii-iip! He's licking me! Make him stop licking me!"

"Well, that's what you get for sitting on the floor," Trip observed. "Like my granny says, you lay down with dogs, you get up with fleas."

"I didn't lay down with him, he knocked me over!" Mal protested, wriggling away from the small beagle. He hopped lightly up onto Jon's desk, where Porthos couldn't reach, and crouched there glowering at him. "And anyway, he was on the couch, not the floor!"

"Well don't you just know better than the rest of us," Trip remarked ambiguously. "Come here, Porthos, come on." The dog receded back to the couch beside Trip, receiving an affectionate ear rub. "Good boy!"

The jealousy in Mal's glare was palpable as he jumped down from the desk and wormed his way back between Trip's knees. "What's that?" he demanded, regaining Trip's attention forcefully. He pointed at the glass of beer and his nose wrinkled. "Is it recycled water?"

"No!" Trip assured him, chuckling a little. "It's called _beer_. It's a drink. You want to try a little?" Of course Mal did. "Lord knows what it'll do to you," Trip went on, reaching for his glass. "Only a little bit now. The flavor takes some getting used to."

Jon exited the bathroom just in time to see Mal kneeling between Trip's feet, all four hands on a glass of beer in the engineer's lap. Trip tipped the glass back up after giving Mal a sip. "Now, how do you like that?" he asked as Jon sat down on the couch beside him.

Mal's face scrunched up comically. "Um, it's good, I like it," he insisted, and Trip gave Jon a look that said he didn't quite buy it.

"Maybe a pretzel?" Jon suggested, holding the bowl out and keeping Porthos's nose away from it.

"Pret-zel," Mal repeated. "That's a funny word. What is it? Is it a snack?"

"Yes, Mal, it's a snack," Trip agreed patiently. "Go on, try one."

Mal carefully examined the contents of the bowl without touching any. Jon's arm was getting tired. "Why are they all twisted up in a knot?"

Trip sighed and grabbed a handful of pretzels so Jon could set the bowl back down. "'Cause that's what pretzels _are_ , Mal. Now do you want some or not?"

Mal reached into Trip's palm and plucked out a pretzel, putting a finger through each of the snack's three holes. "What are these little lumps?" he asked suspiciously. "They're sort of clear and sharp."

"Salt crystals," Trip replied.

"That's a lot of salt," Mal observed with concern. "Dr. Phlox said, salt is one of the bad things that we can easily eat too much of. Are you certain these are safe to consume?"

Trip popped a pretzel in his mouth defiantly. "I've never really been sure." He settled back onto the couch. "Now Jon and I are gonna go back to the game, and I don't want you interrupting all the time, okay? You just sit there quietly, got it?"

"Okay," Mal agreed, as if it were really that easy. Trip gave him a final warning look, then nodded at Jon to go on with the match.

Two hours later Georgia had thoroughly trounced Stanford, but Trip couldn't lord it over Jon _too_ loudly, as both Mal and Porthos were asleep in their respective laps. Mal had somehow hitched himself up so his head was pillowed against Trip's thigh, facing away from the screen—a position that looked incredibly uncomfortable, but as long as Trip ran his fingers through the other man's dark hair, he seemed perfectly content to snooze.

"Good triumphs over evil yet again," Trip whispered to Jon.

"Next time I'm going to watch it first," Jon vowed, "and not play it for you unless Stanford wins." Carefully he stood and laid Porthos down in his bed. Then he turned to regard Trip and his Mal lap blanket. "He was very well-behaved, I thought."

"Yeah," Trip admitted quietly, "I guess he did okay, after all." He poked at Mal's shoulder gently. "Come on, Mal, it's time to go home." Mal mumbled something and tried to burrow more into Trip's lap.

"He _is_ kind of cute, don't you think?" Jon remarked, trying to defuse the instant exasperation that flared in Trip's eyes.

"Mal, come on," Trip said more loudly, giving the man a shake. "Let's go home and go to bed."

Sleepily Mal stirred and opened his eyes. "Is all the drowning over with?"

"Yes, all done," Trip assured him. "Time to go home."

"Okay." Moving far more fluidly than Trip ever could Mal pushed himself to his feet and even helped Trip up as well.

"Night, Jon," Trip told his friend as Mal began to lean against him, eyes drooping shut. "Thanks for having us over."

"Let's not wait so long to do it again," Jon replied.

"Agreed." Trip gave him a smile. "Well, come on, Mal." He grabbed the other man's hand and led him out the door.

"Was I very good, Trip?" Jon heard Mal murmuring.

"You were _mostly_ good," Trip allowed. "Kinda drooled on my leg a little, though…"


End file.
